Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Big Oil Slicks

A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.

Ho, ho!

In a joint hearing last week of the Senate Energy and Commerce committees, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips said their firms did not participate in the 2001 task force. The president of Shell Oil said his company did not participate "to my knowledge," and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know.

Strictly speaking, the oil barons aren't subject to perjury charges because Commerce Chairman Ted "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens of Alaska decided not to make them testify under oath.

Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg will ask the Justice Department to investigate whether oil execs are lying about their role in manipulating the energy policy.

Nice gesture, Frank, but what kind of investigation do you expect 'Berto "Torture Guy" Gonzalez to conduct on Dick and Dubya's big oil cronies?

Isn't that a bit like putting Pat Roberts in charge of investigating the Bush administration's manipulation of the intelligence on Iraq?

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (retired) was a naval flight officer who commanded an aircraft squadron and was operations officer of USS Theodore Roosevelt, the carrier that fought the Kosovo War. He earned a master-of-arts degree in post-modern imperialism at the U.S. Naval War College where many of his essays became required student reading. Jeff’s weekly satires on U.S. foreign policy high jinks appear at Antiwar.com and his critically applauded novel Bathtub Admirals (Kunati Books), a lampoon on America's rise to global dominance, is on sale now. Jeff lives with dogs in a house by the beach on Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, and in the summer he has a nice tan.